Hadjar praises Lawson after career best result in Monaco

Isack Hadjar says his qualifying performance at the Monaco Grand Prix was a particularly proud moment, before praising his teammate Liam Lawson’s help in executing a strategy that protected a strong finishing position.

Lewis Hamilton’s grid penalty promoted Hadjar from sixth to fifth after qualifying in Monaco, and although the Ferrari driver was able to regain his lost positions through strategy, Hadjar came home in the same place he had originally qualified for the best result of his career so far.

“I’m proud of myself for qualifying,” Hadjar told SiriusXM. “The team did a mega job, an especially in the race. We have a double points finish, a really brilliant effort. The strategy was mega, so I’m happy with my boys, and in qualifying I did a fantastic job, I have to say.

“To be honest I haven’t really helped Liam, he completely helped me, that’s more the case. But in the end it made his race better and I think we maximized everything. We had a few doubts on strategy a few races ago, we didn’t make the right calls, but today was perfect.”

The strategy saw Lawson back up the field behind him so that Racing Bulls teammate Hadjar could make his two pit stops and not emerge in traffic. Team principal Laurent Mekies was similarly proud of how the team handled the situation as Lawson was ultimately able to secure an eighth place of his own.

“Extremely pleased for the result, and perhaps even more pleased in the way we got that result,” Mekies said. “An amazing job from Isack and Liam to put that car in such a good position in qualifying and then it was not going to be a boring race.

“We knew we had a million scenarios to be careful with and we saw an opportunity to execute something really strong as a team, and Liam has been a fantastic team player. Him and Isack were controlling the race, going fast when they had to go fast, and going slow when they had to go slow.

“The team executed a very articulated and perfect strategy, and finally we got a decent bag of points. Therefore it's good to be back in the fight for the championships as well.”

Mekies had special praise for the way that Lawson responded when the strategy was explained to him, even though it may have ended up risking his own chance of points.

“Liam understood straight away already [on Saturday night] when we worked through tonnes of scenarios. We obviously spent a bit more time on that one and he understood straight away and [on Sunday] morning we spoke and in his mind, there was not a single doubt – he was fully on board.

“That's a a huge asset for the team to have drivers like that with Liam and Isack who know it's a team sport and they put their talent at the service of a very nice team job.”